On the way down from Taylor Park we met English bike tourists Trevor and Leanne, who started in Phoenix and plan to ride all the way to Jasper, Alberta. Like us, they are taking back roads and they've hiked the Grand Canyon, been to Zion National Park and Moab, and are incredible travellers. The catalog of their travels would take days.

We stopped and camped together and have yet more European bike tourist friends!

Mark Shimoda joined us for the ride from Denver to Gunnison and has been a complete delight. It was his first-ever bike-packing bike-camping, even though he's toured extensively. Mark rode strong and wonderfully and was a great travelling companion... And is eagerly planning more touring!

There's not much I dislike when touring more than MUD! We got caught in a thunderstorm while riding (illicitly) on dirt roads in Antero Reservoir State Park, and we were just completely stopped by the mud. Nancy went down in a slippery section. I had to stop because the BOB trailer's wheel wouldn't go around any more. Mark had to clean everything out. It was bad. But we got enough mud off to continue riding, and eventually got to the end of the day!

We rode through the incredible Hayman Fire burn area (from the 2002 fire seasn) on the second day out. People told us it was like World War III, but we found it quite different. There was lots of ground cover, lots of green. The black trees were quite stark, but it was really a pleasant day. But the Goose Creek road we took had us gaining more than 4000 feet of elevation, and it was rough! What a day1

Here we go - we're leaving right now. There's a picture on the front page of us loaded with our gear. Nancy has about 30 pounds of gear and I have about 65 pounds loaded in the BOB trailer (too much!).

Our route: First southwest in Colorado to Gunnison for my 30th high school reunion. Then I'll continue on to the Northwest through Wyoming, Idaho, Washington state, and British Columbia to Vancouver. Nancy will fly up to Vancouver to ride the last week of the trip. Full details on the route page.

Wish us well!
-Randy and Nancy

The Raramuri (as they call themselves) or Tarahumara (as the Spanish named them) are quite famous both as perhaps the least acculturated people in the Americas and as world-class runners. (Raramuri means something like "people who run".)

They're known to be quite reticent about picture taking and overall interaction with outsiders, and I didn't get to know any, but was fascinated to see them once I got to see many outside the contect of simple crafts sales and such. Seeing native peoples in their native costumes in a park in a tourist town is not too exciting, but backpacking along and coming to a town in the middle of nowhere and seeing that they actually wear the real traditional garb is pretty amazing.

I didn't take pictures of any Raramuri, but found some on the web that might be interesting to you. The men wear a skirt-like cover over a loincloth:

The women wear wonderful multicolored skirts and scarves and everything. I've never seen a more beatiful set of clothes on anybody anywhere than the bright colored getup that a woman had on the bus from Batopilas. It was simply gorgeous, with so many beautiful colors.  

The Coppercanyon-Mexico.com site has a bit more on the Raramuri.

I decided to backpack up to the Raramuri village of Muneriche, past the mestizo village of Cerro Colorado. It seemed like an interesting hike, but one I could do alone without much worry about getting lost. It was a great choice, just a delightful two days.

Although the hike starts at tropical elevations and it was hot, it wasn't brutally hot. Maybe like Denver some days in the summer. The hike proceeds up the river and then up an arroyo toward Cerro Colorado through hillsides and beautiful cactus. There is a road to Cerro, and one truck did offer me a ride, but most people have to walk it.

In Cerro Colorado, a village with no electricity or running water, I stopped to visit with the Candelario, the teacher at the 1-room primary school, and his students. We chatted for hours, then he went on up the canyon with me for a few minutes to his favorite swimming hole and we took a swim and a bath. (He has no other bathing facilities, so every day is a river swim day for him.)

In the late afternoon I continued up to Muneriche, which has no electricity, water, or vehicle access. You get there on foot. And there's a full boarding school there for Raramuri (Tarahumara) kids who walk as far as 4 hours to get home for the weekend. 50 students and 3 teachers. It's amazing how the school system works!

A dozen or more kids from the village came to watch me put up my tent and cook my dinner. 13-year-old Antonio, who speaks quite good Spanish, shared a bit of dinner with me. They all thought I was pretty funny.  read more here... lee mas aquí... »

Batopilas is way, way below the high point I started at. You start at an elevation where they have snow in the winter, and end in a place where there are palm trees everywhere. This is in the course of 45 miles of riding.

The road is dirt for the last 45 miles, and it started to rain as soon as I started out. A fitting event for the Great Divide route! There was lots of significant climbing (as I should expect) before the descent began, but it was manageable. But what a beautiful day! It was raining and cloudy and misty with beautiful steep, green mountainsides everywhere, and canyons stretching off everywhere you look. Incredible. And completely different from the ride to Urique - the mountainsides everywhere are steeper and greener. It looked a lot like the Peruvian Andes- you expect to find Macchu Picchu around every bend.

The final major descent was similar in nature to the big drop to Urique - the road just switches back and forth down a cliff for thousands of feet. But it wasn't as hard to ride as the descent to Urique. It wasn't as steep and was nowhere near as loose. So even in the rain it was easier (and probably a bit shorter, since there was a more normal descent leading to it).  read more here... lee mas aquí... »